In contrast with
the previous epoch of discovery of the New World, of exploration
and colonization, when a centrifugal influence was at work upon the
populations of Europe, the advent of machinery has brought with it a
counteracting centripetal effect. The result has been the accumulation
of large urban populations, the increase of irresponsibility, and
ever-widening margin of biological waste.
Just as eighteenth century politics and political theories were unable
to keep pace with the economic and capitalistic aggressions of the
nineteenth century, so also we find, if we look closely enough, that
nineteenth century economics is inadequate to lead the world out of the
catastrophic situation into which it has been thrown by the debacle
of the World War. Economists are coming to recognize that the purely
economic interpretation of contemporary events is insufficient. Too
long, as one of them has stated, orthodox economists have overlooked
the important fact that "human life is dynamic, that change, movement,
evolution, are its basic characteristics; that self-expression, and
therefore freedom of choice and movement, are prerequisites to a
satisfying human state".(4)
Economists themselves are breaking with the old "dismal science" of the
Manchester school, with its sterile study of "supply and demand,"
of prices and exchange, of wealth and labor. Like the Chicago Vice
Commission, nineteenth-century economists (many of whom still survive
into our own day) considered sex merely as something to be legislated
out of existence.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114